“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll” is Whitecross’ debut feature, although it will be his third time at the festival — the helmer picked up the Silver Bear in 2006 along with Michael Winterbottom for their documentary “The Road to Guantanamo,” and were back last year with another doc, “The Shock Doctrine.”

It’s also a return for Lifschitz, who won the Berlinale’s 2004 Teddy Award for “Wild Side.”

Likewise back with new works are Peter Kern with his Austrian feature “Initiation”; Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau with French drama “Family Tree”; Japanese helmer Isao Yukisada with “Parade”; and South Korea’s E.J.-Yong with “The Actressses.”

So far, half of the 50 films screening in the international sidebar have been selected. Making up about a third of the program, documentaries are strongly repped with Crayton Robey’s “Making the Boys,” which looks back at “The Boys in the Band,” both the stage play and William Friedkin’s 1970 film adaptation; James Rasin’s “Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar”; “Gay Days” by Israel’s Yair Qedar; and Lothar Lambert’s German work “All My Tumbler Girls or All About Women Who Dare To…”